Flow tracking in wireline networks is used for network monitoring and management functions, such as network monitoring, traffic accounting, network planning, security, and similar functions. Flow tracking of an Internet Protocol (IP) flow in wireline networks is typically performed using IP flow records, which typically include information such as IP addresses/ports of the endpoints of the IP flows being tracked. For example, an IP flow record is usually represented as a five-tuple including: source IP address, source port, destination IP address, destination port, and protocol.
Disadvantageously, however, IP flow records do not provide adequate information for tracking IP flows in wireless networks. For example, when an IP flow traverses a wireless network, there is no way to associate the IP layer activity of the IP flow with impacts of the IP flow to the underlying wireless network and, furthermore, use of IP addresses alone cannot be used to track wireless subscribers because most IP addresses are assigned to wireless subscribers dynamically when the wireless subscribers sign on to the wireless network. These shortcomings prevent use of IP flow records in wireless networks for wireless resource monitoring and management.